Import MPEG-PS on Vegas Timeline ?

rtbond wrote on 10/25/2012, 9:32 AM

Vegas (11/12) will not recognize an MPEG-PS formatted file (see mediaInfo details below). Vegas only sees the audio stream in the MPEG-PS (*.mpg) file.

I thought changing the container to a TS might allow Vegas to import the video clip. Any suggestions on tools to convert an *.mpg to a *.ts or *.m2ts?

I'd like to avoid transcoding the MPEG-2 video and just want to change the container type.

Thanks!

--Rob

======================
MediaInfo Details for *.mpg

General
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 3.43 GiB
Duration : 1h 3mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 7 681 Kbps

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Duration : 1h 3mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 7 144 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.115
Stream size : 3.19 GiB (93%)

Audio
ID : 189 (0xBD)-128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Duration : 1h 3mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -328ms
Stream size : 176 MiB (5%)

Text #1
ID : 224 (0xE0)-CC1
Format : EIA-608
Muxing mode : A/53 / DTVCC Transport
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Bit rate mode : Constant
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

Text #2
ID : 224 (0xE0)-1
Format : EIA-708
Muxing mode : A/53 / DTVCC Transport
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Bit rate mode : Constant
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

Text #3
ID : 224 (0xE0)-2
Format : EIA-708
Muxing mode : A/53 / DTVCC Transport
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Bit rate mode : Constant
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 10/25/2012, 9:41 AM

The problem is the audio.
Demux the audio from the video in AVIDemux, and save it as PCM WAV.
Then open the separate video and audio output files in the Vegas timeline.

rtbond wrote on 10/25/2012, 11:15 AM

Thanks for the AVIDemux pointer.

I played around with AVIDemux a bit and it was not clear how to actually separate the audio and video streams. The Output formats seem to be all multiplexed, except the video-only, which produced a *.raw output.

What am I missing?

Thanks

p.s. Outputting a *.ts file from AVIDemux (from the source *.mpg) seemed to produce a file that Vegas would read, although I am having trouble keeping the audio synced with the video wiithin Vegas.

musicvid10 wrote on 10/25/2012, 1:14 PM

Video: Copy, Mpeg video
Audio: PCM, Dummy

That's two passes.
You have to name the ,mpg and .wav file extensions by hand.

[EDIT: I forgot to note that this is HD source, so the renaming trick will not work.]

rtbond wrote on 10/25/2012, 4:26 PM

Thanks again.

The VOB extension rename trick did not work for me.

Using AVIDemux or SmartLabs tsMuxeR to change the container to *.ts seems to work OK, but requires re-syncing the audio in Vegas (a minor annoyance).

BTW, the issue I mentioned above about having trouble keeping the audio sync'ed in Vegas was caused by a capture error in the original MPG (Vegas shows "drop-outs" in the audio, which I have seen before in HDV M2TS files that contained error <e.g., missing/corrupted packets)

john_dennis wrote on 10/25/2012, 5:21 PM

You could try VideoReDo / Quick Stream Fix on the original capture. It might clean up the lost packets and help you keep them in sync.

musicvid10 wrote on 10/25/2012, 8:24 PM

I forgot to note the file is HD, so the renaming trick will not work.

If TSMuxer did not fix the bad frames, I would try VideoRedo QSF as John Dennis suggested. VRD has a free trial. There is also one called TS Doctor.

rtbond wrote on 10/26/2012, 5:57 AM

John,

Thanks for the pointer to the VideoReDo Plus program. I tried the QuckStreamFix operation on several of the *.mpg files and the resulting fixed output *.mpg could be imported to the Vegas timeline. There must have been something about the MPEG2-PS file structure that Vegas did not like.

By the way the files in question were Windows Media Center 7 recordings (*.wtv files) that had their containers changed to *.mpg using the freeware converter MC-TVConverter. Because of the error prone nature of the capture (CATV distribution=> SiliconDust HDHomeRunPrime network-attached multi-tuner=>IP video streaming to WMC PC), these programs streams are often not pristine in their MPEG2 container structure.

Using the VideoReDo Plus feature to re-multiplex an MPEG2 program stream seems to clean-up any container problems so that Vegas will import the *.mpg media to the timeline. This also avoids having to re-sync the audio and video, which was necessary if I created a MPEG2 transport stream version of the recording from the *.mpg.

I think I am in good shape.

Thanks again.

--Rob

rtbond wrote on 10/26/2012, 6:37 AM

Thanks for the TS Doctor pointer. This looks to be a powerful tool for correcting MPEG2 transport stream container problems. It does not appear to be able to open *.mpg (program stream) files directly, but its easy to convert the *.mpg to *.ts using TSMuxer.

Good to have another tool in the arsenal.

--Rob

musicvid10 wrote on 10/26/2012, 9:12 AM

I believe VideoRedo will also work directly with your .wtv files (and remove the commercials too). It's really worth owning if you work with PVR.

Let me explain what happened to your footage. Even though it was reflagged to PS after the fact, it started life as a Transport Stream. Broadcast TS is full of errors, and most of these are allowed for consistent playback. The frames that cannot be decoded are either dropped or duped, and we rarely notice when watching TV or PVR playback.

Let me be clear that these errors did not occur in your home entertainment system. They were already there when the stream reached your cable box. Your home system is arguably the most stable link in the chain.

Decoding these files for editing is an entirely different matter. Vegas' decoders choke on mis-indexed frames, and there are plenty of them in your broadcast stream. Changing the format to Program Stream does not in itself fix the errors. I have seen this several times. The entire stream sequence, from the first errored frame forward, must be re-indexed to make sense to the decoder, which expects a certain cadence of I, P, and B frames in order to know what to do next. In the case of h264, that GOP can be hundreds of frames in length, but with MPEG-2, it is usually 15 frames.

John Dennis' suggestion that you use VRD/QSF was a great catch and a smart call. While I was wondering where the heck your HD MPEG-2/AC3 came from, he correctly recognized that it was originally from a PVR.

Sometimes PVR footage can be opened in Vegas without re-indexing. Usually (and esp. in the case of OTA transmisssion) it cannot. Tools that are designed to reindex or fix transport streams are important to have in one's kit, and should be the first choice when dealing with problems with Transport Streams, not just with PVR, but sometimes with camcorder footage, as well.

Hope this helps to understand what you've just been through.

rtbond wrote on 10/26/2012, 11:37 AM

VideoReDo will not open WMC 7 *.wtv files, only the older XP/Vista Media Center Edition *.DVR-MS files. The WMC 7 edition has QAM digital decoding, as well as CableCard support (for accessing subscribed CATV encrypted content). TS-Doctor also does not support *.wtv files.

There is an Open Source program called "MCEBuddy" that (like MC-TVConverter below) that will directly manipulate *.wtv files, but best I can tell it offers no re-multiplexing to correct errors in the source (only container swapping, video transcoding, and commercial skipping)

It would be nice if there was a utility that would clean-up transport stream errors directly from the *.wtv file, as this would reduce the processing chain and help minimize error propagation. As it now stands in use MC-TVConverter to convert the Microsoft proprietary *.wtv container to *.mpg (program stream), but this utility will also output *.ts (transport stream).

I have been using the *.mpg output as it seemed to work best when streaming the recording content via the Western Digital TV Live media player (HDMI connection to living room TV and network connection to NAS where WMC recorded content lives). The conversion of the *.wtv to *.mpg was not to address the errors on the MPEG2 container, just to address my Media Player limitations.

I understand the when bring in PVR-sourced (WMC) content into Vegas I will likely have to first cleanse the media clip using VideoReDo or TS-Doctor,

Thanks for the dialog.

--Rob

Former user wrote on 10/26/2012, 12:38 PM

You can convert the WTV to a DVR-MS file directly in windows. Then other programs can access that.

Dave T2

musicvid10 wrote on 10/26/2012, 7:42 PM

VideoRedo TVSuite (the newer version) is advertised to work with MS WTV/MSE directly, as well as DVR.
Although all I need at present is VideoRedo Plus, that could change at any time.

I too have and use WDTV Live. Having never used any flavor of MS stream acquisition, I am a bit in the dark as to your considerations. Thanks for the added input.

rtbond wrote on 10/26/2012, 8:55 PM

Yes, I see the VideoReDo TVSuite H.264 supports *.wtv input files. Thanks for pointing that out.

Dave - Thanks for the reminder that Windows 7 has a built-in *wtv to *.dvr-ms converter

--Rob